Early in 1992 when Sachin Tendulkar, not yet 19, was fighting a lone battle against Australia's attack in Perth en route to 114, Sir Donald Bradman is said to have urged those who had not yet seen him bat to pay attention because the young man was exhibiting the closest thing to The Don's game he had seen. In the relentless nature of Tendulkar's scoring over a Test and one-day career that spans 18 years since his debut against Pakistan in 1989, as a 16-year-old prodigy, he has not disappointed.

At Lord's some time over the next five days he will probably score the six runs he needs to overtake Steve Waugh's Test match total of 10,927 . Beyond that comes Allan Border's 11,174 and at the apex, Brian Lara's astounding 11,953. At the age of 34, given a fair wind and fitness, not a given for someone troubled by tennis elbow and a bad shoulder in recent years - with surgery required to deal with both - Tendulkar should eclipse them all in the next year or so, adding to his 37 centuries before no doubt ceding one day to the remarkable Ricky Ponting.

Whether he can begin the climb significantly at Lord's is a moot point, however. Tendulkar's Test average of 55.44 is the highest of the quartet of leading run-scorers and in 19 matches against England it soars to almost 68. Bring him to England and it rises yet further to 71.6, including four centuries (the first of them at Old Trafford in 1990, when not even 18 years old). Take him to St John's Wood, though, and success has proved elusive, five innings in three matches producing only 96 runs, from scores of 10, 27, 31,16 and 12. There has not been even a glimmer of an international century at the home of cricket, Test or one-day, from one of the game's greatest ever exponents.

Lara, his only rival as the leading batsman of the past 15 years, never made the honours board either. But Waugh did so at his first attempt and Border in his third game. Bradman appears twice, opening with 254. For such a player as Tendulkar, given his record against England (significantly outstripping that against Australia, 53.11; New Zealand, 48.27; South Africa, 30.58; West Indies, 57.73; Pakistan, 39.91), it is a sin of omission.

Tendulkar, who warmed up with a fine and ominous 171 against the England A side last week, will have prepared meticulously for this series, as he always does. Stones are not left unturned. Once, when due to encounter Shane Warne, he employed a team of leg-spinners and a specially prepared net to replicate his line into the rough, going on to prosper against him as perhaps no one else has. Warne consequently regards him as the finest batsman he has faced: "Daylight second, Lara third." It is the highest testimony.

So Ryan Sidebottom's inswing will come as no surprise; Tendulkar already knows of Matthew Hoggard and, indeed, Stuart Broad (who finished with five for 76 in the England A game on Sunday); and the skill of Monty Panesar, who dismissed him famously for his maiden Test wicket on his own Test debut in Nagpur, is acknowledged. Nothing will have been left to chance.

Yet for all his stellar status there have always been question marks attached to Tendulkar, anomalies of a kind that ought not to dog a batsman of this calibre. His big innings, it is said, all too often count for little in a team context, mostly coming in matches that are ultimately drawn or lost.

Make what you will of statistics but they appear to bear this out, with only 13 of his centuries, including four against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, contributing to the 43 wins India have managed in 137 Tests with him in the side. If the careers of Border and Waugh were founded on defiance this, for Tendulkar, possessed of more obvious natural talent and no less steely mentality, is below what is expected in his own country.

Perhaps the risk of being more expansive, as Lara has been, is outweighed by the opprobrium that is heaped upon him more than any other should he fail. He is human and, besides, India might welcome some solidity.

Of more concern are the rumours, increasing, that he has begun to lose his nerve against the most aggressive pace bowling, that short-pitched bombardment is upsetting his equilibrium as the weariness - manifesting itself in the injuries - begins to catch up. Had Steve Harmison been fit and firing, the theory would certainly have been challenged. For the moment, though, the particular and probably last-chance challenge of Lord's looms.

Perhaps, away from all the more facile reasons, it is the questions asked of batsmen by the Lord's slope to which Tendulkar has yet to find the answer. His five dismissals there have all been to seamers - three bowled, one caught at slip and the other by the wicketkeeper.

Lord's makes you play when you do not want to and sometimes not play when you should: when first at the crease, even Tendulkar can be dragged too far outside off stump. That is where England's success against him has been at Lord's and that is how they should continue.